Preseason training for 400m runners (Week 9)

Latif
Do you do any testing in your programme, do you think this is need
Also do you use measure devise to aid acceleration development for example tape marks
Thank
A Steven

>>> I haven’t done any testing with this fall program, but I probably should have. My goal here was to show the progressions, but testing at the 4 or 6 work mark and the 8 or 10 week mark could very easily be appropriate. I don’t generally do a lot of testing with my groups because I have too many kids and not enough staff. With a field or court sport I think it would be appropriate to find a way to do it, but with track, the meets are testing to me. So I use PRs on the track and field as our testing.

I use tape marks to aid acceleration for my advanced sprinters who have the running skill to actually be able to do something with it. But I don’t do it with the ‘masses’ because their poor acceleration skill and patterns is due mostly due poor strength levels, coordination and skill acquisition. That can change so rapidly as they acquire basic running ability that I find those tape marks, etc. become more of a distraction than a benefit to my less experienced sprinters. But with my kids who are competing for titles, so to speak, I will do that go aid in patterning their drive phase for the first 10-20 meters.

LT

Latif
How would you modify this 12 week program with middle schooler’s (7th & 8th) only training M, W, & Sa? Also, how do you help stride lenghth. I have a female sprinter who struggles with knee lift, which I think effects her stride length. She does have some flexiblity issues, Is that force application that’s the probelm? Or a combination of flexiblity, mobility, and force application? How would procced?

>>> Reverse engineering this program to a 3x/wk for 13/14 year olds is a very long post. Generally, I don’t think kids that age need such a long prep period or season. That said, I’d look at a 2 week cycle:

Week 1

M: speed
W: tempo runs (aerobic)
SA: speed

Week 2

M: tempo runs
W: speed
F: lactic work

That’s a very general outline.

No knee lift for your female is likely caused by the exact issues you specify: #1 Poor overall physical strength (more specifically, poor force application to the ground) and #2, poor hip flexibility/mobility. The solution is to get stronger and improve functional flexibility/mobility in the hips, just as you suggested.

Here is an article I wrote, that you may have already seen, on developing stride length and frequency:

http://athletesaccel.wpengine.com/stridelengthfrequency.html

– LT

When you talk about 300m hills, what grade are they? I live in Illinois and finding any hill is a challenge much less one that goes on for 300m! Are you talking long and gradual?

Thanks,
Danielle Freeman

>>> I used to live in Illinois so I understand your plight. What grade? I don’t know. Steep. Painful. And, in truth, the section they run is estimated since there are some unsafe parts of this hill (grass, rocks, dirt, leaves, etc.). It takes them roughly 70 seconds to run each interval. My preference is fairly steep and brutal, that’s why it’s taken them almost 2 months to get to 5 total reps. Not a perfect answer, I know. But don’t make it more complicated than it is. Think about whether or not the run is long and/or steep enough to develop the qualities you’re looking for.

Latif

Hey, love your work! What do you think would be good 200 workouts? I have a PR of 22.66. What would be some good workouts for the 200? Other info. Im 5’6, 140lbs have prs of 11.27 and 52.41 in 100 and 400. Also what do you think i should concentrate on 100/200 or 2/4? People tell me that i should be 49 with my 200?

Also what is the workout that your athletes do or need to do to say hit a huge PR for a 400?

>>> Again, what constitutes a ‘good 200’ workout entirely depends on time of year. My favorite main competition 200 workout is 2 x 40m out of blocks on the turn. 1 x 80 out of blocks, taking splits at 40m and then 80m. 1×110 out of blocks taking (and comparing) splits at 40, 80, 110. Then, if athlete feels good, 1 x 150 out of blocks taking splits at 40, 80, 110, 150. This way we can look for drop off and inconsistencies to address in our workouts and race planning.

Your times indicate more of a 100/200 type as your 200PR would imply you should be able to go sub50 in the open 400. This is likely due to lack of general endurance in the prep periods and lack of specific endurance developed late special prep and during early competition phases.

There is no specific workout you can do to run a huge PR. It’s 100% about the *overall* plan put in place and the effectiveness of developing appropriate qualities throughout the course of the season. If there was a magic workout, there wouldn’t be so many shitty programs out there.

I know it’s not the answer you’re looking for, but it’s not an extremely simple task to maximize the potential of athletes you design training for which is why most people aren’t good at it.

LT

LT
Thanks for the previous replay
Have you got any tips on how to measure tape marks to aid acceleration for example for times over first 20m or learning how to spot the fault in the start compare to the acceleration template
Thanks
A Steven

>>>I have no specific formula. It depends on the individual athlete. I want a big first step out of the blocks and we focus on the first 3 steps at the outset. I generally don’t use marks beyond 10 meters. I’ll generally mark where I want the first step, see where they land for the next few reps and mark where I would like them to land. It’s not an exact science the way I do it, but I work with high school and middle school kids and they don’t require it. Main point is that each stride should get longer.

LT

I noticed that you are no longer doing hamstring curls. Many of my athletes struggled with the hamstring curls and complained of knee pain. Should hamstring curls be eliminated? Any ideas on the reason for the pain?

>>> I only did hamstring curls because we were doing general exercises for general strengthening. Hamstring curls are a useless exercise for developing speed or specific strength. In fact, all machine exercises are. If your athletes are experiencing knee pain it is most likely due to poor ankle mobility and/or poor hip mobility. Address those areas and the knee pain will go away. However, I think it is unlikely that the pain was due to hamstring curls.

LT

Your having athletes perform lower body strength exercises on consecutive days. I understand that you’ve separated them into knee dominant and hip dominant, but do you ever worry this might be a bit much? Knowing what you now know from FSC III, would you still do this?

>>> Hey Rich. Great observation and question. The answer is yes, I do worry about that. So I just monitor it. I ask kids how they’re feeling, etc. You could switch Tuesday and Wednesday’s track workouts and then Thursday and Friday. But then you’re treading on too much lactic work in a row without a recovery/tempo day. So with a 5 day schedule you have to pick your poison. Obviously they have to lift on Monday. But Tuesday is a quality day (for this time of year anyway) and I don’t want them to lift on the Wednesday recovery day. So it’s a judgment call and if you wanted to argue changing the workouts around to go M,W,F lift, I wouldn’t necessarily disagree with that.

However, at least in Week 1 of their Max Strength phase, they really aren’t doing that much total work. So I don’t think they’re
going to be adversely affected. Of course, this is why we write down our lifts and weights and why I spot check kids’ lifting notebooks – to make sure they’re not detraining.

But, for example, once the indoor season starts, all of our meets are on Saturday. I’m not going to have them lift heavy the day before the meet and I need them to lift 3x per week. So somewhere in that mix, they’re going to have to lift back to back days. So I’ll just monitor the volume to ensure it is not adversely affecting the rest of our training.

Hope that makes sense.

LT

hey, who are these times for? like would these times you have benefit a guy trying to jump from 52 to a 49?

>>> This program would be ideal for someone trying to jump from 52 to 49. But it’s designed for athletes who have a 24 week season, meaning their biggest meet is 24 weeks from when they start training, so keep that in mind.

LT

is it good for a master 100/200m sprinter’s gpp(16weeks)?
day 1 : morning: acceleration/maximum velocity .evening: extensive tempo
day 2: morning: intensive tempo.evening:rest
day 3: morning: rest.evening:acceleration/maximum velocity
day 4: morning:hill sprints.evening: ploys(upper body)
day 5: extensive tempo.evening:acceleration/maximum velocity
day 6: morning:speed endurance.evening:olypmic lifts/start training
with a bodybuilding program at nights
PLZ REPAIR IT…

>>> You have to understand that GPP is General Physical Preparation. This is extremely specific. The main issue is that you’re doing WAY too much quality work. As in, you’re doing it every day which is not possible. So if you follow this plan, you will either get injured or be so overtrained that you lose all desire to workout.

>>>tanx latif
plz break down the problems of this program and help me to understand what shoud i do.again i’m 100&200m sprinter.

hi latif!
for the inverted row and explosive step ups should we be using weights for this or just a bodyweight plyo?. Also, many of my athletes are finding the 12 x 200ms on a thurday very comfortable. should i extend it out to 14-16, increase intensity to 75%, or reduce rest, or combo of all 3? the same is begining to occur for the 24 x 100ms?

Finally, do you copy mike boyles core workouts – dynaic supermans, hip raises, dynamic side plank, off bench side plank, knee abductions e.t.c

im waiting for pay day then will buy both yours and mikes materials and cant wait 🙂

>>>> We’re in a max strength phase now so use as heavy weights as the athletes can handle while maintaining appropriate technique. For the track workouts, we are now at a point of the season where I want intensity to go up and volume to plateau and start to drop. So make the runs faster, but keep the same rest. This, of course, will result in fewer total reps as the athletes will fatigue faster.

Mike’s new philosophy on core work is to eliminate all flexion and extension work and do progressions of roll outs and plank work. As you can see from the program I’m posting, nearly all ab work is stabilization work. Roll outs (on the ball or with the wheel) aren’t really reasonable for large groups, but the plank work is and that is where I focus my efforts.

LT

Hi Latif, what I meant by endurance I mean more of a distance runner. For example an 800m runner, should he focus on just sprints and intervals or include some endurance training such as a tempo run or long run or even hills. what do you suggest, also if this runner is a 400m, and 800m runner

>>> The specific answer to this question is: It depends on the strengths and weaknesses of the specific athletes you are talking about. The general answer is – yes I would probably do some tempo runs and definitely long hill runs during the prep periods. An 800 does require some of the qualities those tempo runs develop. But I wouldn’t want to do so much slow, plodding tempo runs that it takes away from the sprint technique they need for the 4. (This is a philosophy of mine that has changed even during the course of this 12 week program). My preference would be to develop aerobic capacity and power using shorter intervals with less rest vs. doing a lot of long slow runs. I still believe the 800 is treated too much like a pure distance event and things like speed reserve, strength and power are ignored. But how you’d divide those workouts up, my friend, is the art of coaching.

LT

Hey Latif

Could you please elaborate a little on Mr. Boyle and your latest philosophy of concentrating (entirely?) on stabilization?

>>> I’m going to cover this in more detail in an online seminar I’m going to be putting on in the next week or two. So keep an eye out for my emails on that. The short answer is that you don’t do crunches or flexion/extension actions while running, so doing them in training doesn’t develop the specific strength that carries over to the track. What do sprinters do while run? They have to stabilize the torso (flat stomach and lower back, chin up and chest up, etc.) so that is the type of training we should be doing with our sprinters. Again, I’d say about 85% of the core work I’ve been doing the last few years has been stabilization work, with our flexion/extension/rotation mostly taking place during GS circuits and bodyweight training where timed stabilization holds are not convenient.

LT